A familiar figure standing in the rain, with a face touched by some kind of faint gladness and hope. Who is that? First, they didn't want to release the album, someone also considered it as "the worst record I ever heard". Now it's history.
Marvin Gaye's What's going on became a real hit, and this is the starting melody of this album. With the background conversations and dense vocals it's very vivid, full of emotions, and louder than the concert version. In that video, this song and the next, What's happening brother are played together in one track, connecting them very well with a contemplative part, by a monotonic drum pattern and an interesting piano solo. On the album, many songs are connected, there aren't any pauses between them, so it's a longer, painful lament about the actual world (1971) and the possible future. Fully emotional and well arranged. Save the children is a good example for the hopeless future: the declarative short words, and after that the longly singing powerless repeats can fascinate the listener easily. The genre "soul" is a good word for it, because it can really reach our soul while listening to it... listening to feelings about love, hope, passing by - a flow of music, which gets to the peak with the last song, Inner city blues (make me wanna holler) by a more serious atmosphere, and a little bit monotonic mood. For the end, there's a great reprise of What's going on, in a more silent, celebrational way to create a frame for the album.
There are some milestones in music. Nobody would have expected it, or wonder about it, they had just come, and continued writing the music history. What's going on also wrote a paragraph in that big, "never-wants-to-be-finished" book.
(from Save the children):
There'll come a time, when the world won't be singin'.
Flowers won't grow, bells won't be ringin'.
There'll come a time, when the world won't be singin'.
Flowers won't grow, bells won't be ringin'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeWF0LC3R2o
Save the children (from ~3:00):
No comments:
Post a Comment